


Umbilicus

by Lydia (lydiabell)



Category: Tanis (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, PNWS Holiday Hellatus Exchange, Post TANIS 212, at least a hookup, background implied MK/Nic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-13 22:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9144286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiabell/pseuds/Lydia
Summary: Nic's gone missing in the woods again. Geoff is God-knows-where. And MK hates everybody right now.





	1. MK

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kitty Eden (TheBigCat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigCat/gifts).



When MK landed in Seattle and checked her messages and still hadn't heard back from Nic, she started to get pissed. And worried. But (she told herself) mostly pissed.

She took a cab straight to his apartment, redialing all the way there. Nobody answered when she knocked, not that she'd expected anything different. It was a goddamn good thing she’d stolen a key while he was asleep the other night. She let herself in, listening for any movement or…shit!

Oh. Oh, right. The dog. "Hey there, girl. Where's your dumbass owner, huh?" TC jumped up on her and graciously submitted to some ear scratches before heading to the door and whining. MK sighed.

"We can go out in a minute, OK? I just need to do this one thing."

Bracing herself, she flipped the nearest light switch. Well, no body hanging from a ceiling fan or blood painting the walls, so she had that going for her. Jesus Christ, Nic got into some weird shit. TC padded along beside her as she looked through the rest of the apartment, for which she was thankful. But there was no sign of Nic, no sign that things were anything but normal. She headed back to the living room.

Nic's laptop was open on the coffee table. "OK, make that two things." She snagged a few numbers from his contacts, then got up and grabbed a leash. Might as well give the poor dog's bladder a break while she made some more phone calls.

Out in the chill night air, she tried Nic again, then Geoff. Geoff wasn't answering either.

Veronika. No joy.

Alex…no. Not yet. From what Nic said, Alex had her own shit to deal with, and he tried to keep her out of the more disturbing Tanis stuff. Especially after what he put her through last year.

Some old dude on the street corner yelled at her when TC stopped to pee. She ignored him.

Morgan Miller, Sam Reynolds…part of her almost wanted to call them, see if they would somehow magically answer from whatever hellscape they were currently stuck in. But that would be crazy, "and somebody around here needs to not be fucking crazy, don't they, TC?"

The dog looked up on hearing her name, then went back to sniffing around on the sidewalk. "Too bad you're not a bloodhound."

There was Cult of Tanis Paul, but MK wasn't about to call that tea-pushing motherfucker.

That left one name.

"Nic, you asshole, you owe me so fucking much for this," MK muttered as she waited for Cameron Ellis to pick up.

When he finally did, there wasn't a trace of sleep in his voice. "Hello? Who's this?"

She wondered if he'd been Googling the unfamiliar number on the caller ID. She would. "Doesn't matter. Where's Nic?"

He didn't answer for long enough that she'd just checked to see if the connection was still alive when he finally said, "Is this Nic's friend from his podcast? The hacker?"

"Not… never mind." She looked around to make sure there was no one nearby; it probably didn't matter, but she didn't need to deal with some rando overhearing this. "He's missing. He got a message to go meet his friend Geoff in the woods near your 'Breach,'" she couldn't keep the scare quotes out of her voice there, not that she was trying, "and now he's unreachable. You know more than anyone about what the fuck's going on out there, so it's time to cough up. Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Really." MK put all the dubiousness into the word that she could muster, as she pushed open the door to Nic's apartment building. "Come on, TC, home," she whispered to the dog, who'd clearly been cooped up all day and wanted to keep walking.

"I'm telling you the truth. I assume he went into the Breach, but what might have happened to him there is—I'm afraid it's beyond my understanding."

This was not happening. It was just a _forest_ , for Christ's sake. There was no reason her hand should be shaking as she turned Nic's key in the lock.

"Have you heard anything from Geoff?" Ellis continued.

"No, he's not answering his phone. And here's the thing. Nic said he never called Geoff. Somebody set him up."

"That's…" Ellis actually sounded shaken."That's a problem."

"You think?"

"Geoff was supposed to keep Nic away from the Breach tonight."

Wait. "Wait. What?"

"I met Geoff when I bought his brother's tapes," Ellis explained. "And since he seemed to get along well with Nic, I asked him to just—keep an eye on him."

"Geoff's been _spying_ for you?"

"No. Not spying. He's been protecting Nic. Which I believe he would have done anyway."

"And reporting back to you." Fuck! Was she the only one Nic could trust?

"He never told me anything that didn't end up in the podcast." Which might be true, she reflected; Nic put fucking _everything_ in the podcast. Well, almost everything. "And in return, I was able to provide Geoff with information he could use to help keep Nic safe."

MK thought back over Geoff and Nic's interactions. Suddenly, one incident stood out. "Did you try to kill Nathaniel Carter?" she demanded.

A pause. "It's compl—"

"It's complicated, yeah. Believe me, dude, we all know. Did you try to kill him?"

He sighed. "We didn't try to kill anyone."

"But you burned down the Parzavala building."

"Yes."

"And you tipped Geoff off so Nic wouldn't be there."

"Yes."

"OK." She took a deep breath. She really preferred being the cagey one in any given conversation. "We're gonna stick a pin in that and come back to it later. It looks like somebody took Geoff off the table." She felt a chill as she said it. She wasn't even sure she liked the guy, but for Nic’s sake, she didn't want anything to happen to him.

"Maybe you can help."

"Oh yeah? How?"

And that was how she ended up sitting in a 4x4 outside a house that looked like a crack den—no, scratch that, this house _aspired_ to crack den—with a corporate executive at 3:00 in the morning.

"Fuck. My. Life."


	2. Geoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So just who called Geoff out to the woods, anyway?

Nic greeted Geoff fifty yards or so from the airplane-tree. "Thanks for coming out, man."

"Hey, no problem." He threw Nic a friendly elbow as they walked the rest of the way together. "You know me, I'm always up for a walk in the woods, right?"

"Yeah, well, I hope you still feel that way in a minute."

"Why, what's up?"

"That," Nic said, pointing ahead of them at the plane. "No pun intended."

"Cute." Well, Nic seemed to be in a good mood anyway. "So what's the big deal, I've already seen…" He came to a dead stop as his brain caught up with what his eyes were seeing. "What the fuck?"

The plane, the one that had looked like it was 50 years old, was still there. Shiny and new like it had just crashed yesterday.

"Fuck," was all he could think of to say.

"Yeah. Pretty messed up, isn't it?"

'Messed up' didn't even begin to cover it. This was horror movie shit. "Did you know about this? Is that why you asked me to come out here?"

Nic was still looking at the plane. "I kind of wanted a sanity check, you know?"

"Yeah. Well, you got it, buddy. Either you're sane or we're both nuts."

"Comforting."

It couldn't be the same plane. It just couldn't. He said so to Nic, who just gave him a doubtful look. "So, what, the old plane disappeared and a new plane that looks just like it crashed in the exact same tree?"

Well, shit, when he put it that way, that wasn't any better. "Yeah, I guess not. You think this has anything to do with your weird star convergence thingy?"

"The Poeticon Astronomicon? I don't know. Maybe. I mean, it doesn't seem like a coincidence, does it?"

"I can't even tell anymore, dude. I'm starting to really hate this freaky fucking forest."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"So let's bail. You need mysteries, we'll head back to my place and watch NCIS or something. Forget this shit."

"Seriously? You don't want to know what's going on here?"

"No. I don't. Getting caught up in shit you don't understand isn't as much fun as you think it is."

Oops.

"That sounds like the voice of experience," Nic said.

"Yeah, I guess it is."

They stood there quietly for a minute. Even if Nic asked, Geoff wasn't going to tell him, but he really hoped he wouldn't ask.

"If you don't want to come, I understand," Nic finally said. "Really. This is my obsession, not yours."

God damn it. "Yeah, but I said I'd come. And anyway, it was Karl's too, I guess. I just…I think you should drop it. Look how much good it did him."

"But I have you to keep me out of trouble," Nic said lightly.

Geoff snorted. "Glad I'm good for something. So, what now?"

They decided to head over to where Nic was supposed to meet Veronika. It was a little early, but hey, it never hurt to scout out the territory ahead of time.

With one last glance over his shoulder at the plane, he followed Nic deeper into the woods.

***

MK gripped her pepper spray tightly as they walked up to the house. It wasn't really enough if they had to fight off a pack of date-raping hippies, but it was something. Maybe Ellis was a good fighter. She looked over at him.

Or maybe not.

There were no lights on, and the door was slightly ajar. When she opened it, she could see the splintered jamb from where it had once been kicked in. The walls of the front room were scorched, and there was a pile of burnt fabric and wood in the corner that used to be furniture. It looked like someone had started to clean up the damage then decided the place wasn't worth it. Given the moldy smell and the water damage it no doubt signified, MK had to agree.

There were two bedrooms off the back hall. One held a cache of bottled water, protein bars, and dried fruit. In the other, four sleeping bags were laid out on the floor. The kitchen looked basically untouched—there was no electricity or water, so no real use for it—and the bathroom…well, clearly people had been using the house recently.

Just as clearly, Geoff wasn't there.

"So either the Cult of Tanis didn't take him, or they stashed him somewhere else," MK said. Of course, there was a third option, but she wasn't entertaining that one yet.

Ellis pulled out his phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"The police."

"What for? We don't have time for that. We need to find Nic."

"These people are dangerous," Ellis insisted. "It'll be better for Nic, and everyone, if they're contained."

MK didn't much like the sound of 'contained.' "Well, excuse me if I don't stick around. People like me try not to spend a lot of time around law enforcement." She reached for her phone to call an Uber. Where the fuck she was going, she wasn't sure, but this place was a dead end. Just as she unlocked the screen, though, an incoming call notification flashed.

_Nic Silver._

Holy shit.

With a shaking finger, she hit "Accept."

"Nic? Nic, what the fuck? Where are you?"

***

"Holy shit."

Nic said nothing.

The Grackles' camp had been destroyed. Not just abandoned or even ransacked—it looked like it had been put through a giant wood chipper.

Geoff had seen whole villages leveled, sure, but never anything as thorough as this. And anyway, that had been in a fucking war zone, not a quiet corner of Washington State.

"Should we check?" Nic whispered.

There was no way in hell anyone was alive in there, but … "Yeah. Stay close." Geoff was on high alert now, scanning the area in case whoever—whatever—had done this was still around. For the first time in a long, long time, he wished he were carrying.

Together, they looked through the debris, but there was no sign of bodies. Well, that was something, anyway. Maybe once they got back to where there was cell service, Nic would have a voice mail from Veronika calling the whole thing off. Or better yet, maybe she'd leave town and he'd never hear from her again.

"OK, no arguing this time," Geoff declared. "We're leaving."

He was fully prepared to pick Nic up and carry him out of the damn forest if he had to, but Nic just nodded and said "yeah" in a barely audible voice.

As they left, Nic paused at one of the trees that ringed the clearing. He ran a finger over the red string tied around it, then slowly untied it and put it in his pocket.

"At least we've got plenty of daylight," Geoff said as they started back. Getting no answer, he took a water bottle out of his pack, took a swig, and offered it to Nic. Nic waved him off at first, but Geoff put the bottle in his hand anyway, and he drank without seeming to really notice.

After a few more minutes of walking in silence, Geoff tried again. "You worried about Veronika?"

"Yeah." He sounded a bit startled. "Yeah, of course."

Of course. "You worried about anything else, there?"

"Not exactly?" Nic had the red string in his hands and was fidgeting with it. "I mean, I shouldn't even be thinking about this."

"About what? Come on, you can tell me."

"It's just that… this event, whatever it is. I don't know how often it's supposed to happen. I mean, maybe it's a once in a lifetime thing, maybe even multiple lifetimes."

"And you don't want to miss it."

Nic sighed. "It's selfish, I know. Veronika, the rest, I don't know what's happened to them. They could be dead. And I can't stop thinking about whether I'm going to miss an opportunity to learn more about Tanis."

"You know what I think?"

"That this is all bullshit?"

Geoff laughed. "Always, dude. I was just gonna say, if this thing is making you act some way that you don't think is right, that you don't think is _you_ , then maybe it's something you should leave alone. That's all."

Nic kicked at some leaves under his feet, but said nothing. Well, now he'd done it. Nic was probably pissed off, but hey, he kept Geoff around for protection, right? This was protection too. Maybe a kind he needed even more than the bodyguard stuff.

Geoff had just about resigned himself to silence for the whole walk back by the time Nic finally spoke.

"Maybe," he said in a flat voice.

Geoff glanced over, but Nic wasn't looking at him. Instead he picked up the pace until he was walking just a bit ahead. Geoff sighed and followed. He just needed to get Nic the fuck home, that was all. Then he'd be OK. This place was messing with his head.

It was kind of messing with his own, too, to be honest. It almost felt like a physical pressure, increasing with every step he took. His ears were starting to ring, too. Maybe he was allergic to something out here. He tried to call out to Nic, tell him to hold up a minute, but suddenly his head felt too heavy to hold up and he sank to the ground.

"Nic," he gasped, but when he looked up, he was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I'm thinking the third chapter will be the last, but that might change depending on what happens in 3x02.


End file.
